The Lost Female Scholars of Islam

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following is taken from The Lost Female Scholars of Islam by Shaykh Muhammad Akram Nadwi, on Monday, 13^th August 2012. 

At the time Eileen Marie Collins became the first woman to command the space shuttle, some Muslims were debating the right of women to drive a car on the road.  This disparity in the level of public discourse on the rights of women and role of women confront Muslim societies.  If you call a man a thief long enough, he will start to think he really is a thief.  Likewise, if you call a child stupid all the time, she will grow up thinking she really is stupid.  This swindle of self-perception describes the deep seated anxiety surrounding women in Islam.  The sustained media and academic portrayal of Islam has been that of a sexist, patriarchal religion that subjugates women through implicit assumptions of their inferiority.  The corrective efforts to this perceived sexism have been shaped by conservatism and radicalism alike.  Muslim feminists throw women forward as the bastion of a new, gender-less Islam, free from the shackles of male scholarship and propelling them forth to become imams and state leaders.  At the same time, one can find countless a’immah from the Indian subcontinent who will readily declare women’s rights as a pernicious Western import, against which the best defence is to keep them inside the home and away from places of work and education.  In this way, there may be little that separates misogynistic mullahs from progressive feminists: both are reactions to a crisis of confidence in their own faith.  The social and political upheavals of the past century have shaken the ummah to the very core - to the point that commentators cannot seem to defend the most basic social relationship between men and women. 

Amidst these celebrations and condemnations of Islam’s supposed misogynism, Shaykh Muhammad Akram Nadwi’s study of al-muhadditsat, the women scholars of ahadits is a timely reminder that the gender issue need not be a problem in Islam.  The portrayal in the media of Islam as the cause of the subordination of women was a key inspiration for the shaykh to embark on his decade long study.  Currently a research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, he found himself confronted with disagreements amongst Muslims about their own history.  There was a gaping need to seek out the real historical record on women’s place in the Islamic tradition. 

There are widely cited arguments that the male gender bias in Islamic scholarship has affected the interpretations of the Qur’an and ahadits.  But the historical records show examples of fatawa issued by male jurists that were materially adverse to men and in favour of women.  Furthermore, many of the testaments of excellent female scholarships have been recounted by their male students.  Imam Shams ad-Din Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ahmad adz-Dzahabi (r.a.) noted that amongst female narrators of ahadits, there were none found to be fabricators.  Women’s scholarly integrity and independence were unimpeachable.  Naturally, any sexist male would have a problem admitting to these facts.  Since women today participate so little in the teaching of ahadits and the issuing of fatawa, there is a wide misconception that historically they have never played this role.  As Shaykh Akram described, “When I started, I thought there may be thirty to forty women,” but as the study progressed, the accounts of female scholars kept growing and growing, until eventually there were no less than 8,000 biographical accounts to be found.  Such vast numbers truly testify to the huge role that women have played in the preservation and development of Islamic learning since the time of the blessed Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.).  The women encountered by Shaykh Akram were far from mediocre when compared to men, indeed, some excelled far beyond their male contemporaries.  There were exceptional women who not only actively participated in society but also actively reformed it.  Most striking was the high calibre of their intellectual achievements and the respect that they received for this. 

Apart from well-known figures, including Sayyidatina ‘Aishah bint Abu Bakr (r.a.), the daughter of Sayyidina Abu Bakr ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Utsman asw-Swiddiq (r.a.), the grandeur of forgotten scholars is rekindled in the work.  Shaykha Fathimah bint Ibrahim al-Bathayahiyyah (r.a.), an 8^th century scholar taught the celebrated work of Swahih al-Bukhari in Damascus.  She was known as one of the greatest scholars of that period, demonstrated especially during the hajj when leading male scholars of the day flocked from afar to hear her speak in person.  A beautiful picture is painted of her in an Islam that has been long forgotten – a distinguished, elderly woman teaching her students for days on end in the Prophet’s Mosque itself.  Whenever she tired, she would rest her head on the Prophet’s (s.a.w.) grave and continue to teach her students as the hours wore on.  Any woman visiting the Prophet’s (s.a.w.) mosque now will know the frustration of not even being able to see the blessed Prophet’s (s.a.w.) grave, let alone rest their head on its side wall. 

Another, Shaykha Umm ‘Abdullah Zaynab bint al-Kamal (r.a.), taught more than four hundred books of ahadits in the 12^th century.  Her ‘camel loads’ of texts attracted camel loads of students.  She was a natural teacher, exhibiting exceptional patience which won the hearts of those she taught.  With such a towering intellectual reputation, her gender was no obstacle to her teaching in some of the most prestigious academic institutes in Damascus. 

Then there was Shaykha Fathimah bint Muhammad as-Samarqandi (r.a.), a jurist who advised her more famous husband on how to issue his fatawa.  Shaykha Umm al-Darda al-Kubra (r.a.), who as a young woman, used to sit with male scholars in the mosque.  “I’ve tried to worship Allah in every way,” she wrote, “but I’ve never found a better one than sitting around debating with other scholars.”  She became a teacher of ahadits and fiqh and lectured in the men’s section.  One of her students was the caliph of Damascus.  The sheer hard work and dedication to Islam by these women is unfathomable by standards today – but they also had some biological advantages against men.  Female muhaddi that were often sought after by students to learn ahadits because of their longer lifespan - which shortened the links in the chains of narration.  Although Shaykh Akram’s study focused on the narrators of ahadits, he found that women scholars had also contributed significantly in teaching “theology, logic, philosophy, calligraphy and many of the crafts that we recognise and admire as Islamic.” 

The presence of female teachers alone does not do justice to the importance of women in Islamic history.  The Qur’an, as originally recorded on parchments and animal bones, was entrusted to Sayyidatina Hafswah bint ‘Umar (r.a.), daughter of Sayyidina Abu Hafsw ‘Umar ibn al-Khaththab al-Faruq (r.a.).  It was with the help of these preserved records that caliph, Sayyidina Abu ‘Amr ‘Utsman ibn ‘Affan (r.a.) disseminated six standardised versions of the Qur’an to the major political and cultural centres in the Muslim realm.  He ordered all non-standardised editions to be burned, an act that indicated the immense trust in Hafswah’s (r.a.) competence and character.  The validity of women’s teachings was never doubted by the companions on account of their gender, or by any respected scholar since. 

Considering Islam’s teachings on the fundamental equality of men and women, Shaykh Akram’s work should really be no surprise.  The Prophet (s.a.w.) taught that there is no difference in worth between believers on account of their gender.  Both have the same rights and duties to learn and teach – from memorising and transmitting the words of the Qur’an and ahadits to the interpretation of these sources and giving counsel to fellow Muslims through fatawa.  Women have the same duty as men to encourage the good and restrain the evil.  It follows quite logically from this that if they cannot become scholars and be capable of understanding, interpreting and teaching, they cannot fulfill their duty as Muslims.  If the subjugation of women is not the result of Islamic teachings, then why are there such gross violations of women’s rights in the Muslim world today?  Relegating the Muslim woman only to the role of a mother and housewife is a relatively modern phenomenon.  Did ‘Aishah (r.a.) not lead an army and did Sayyidatina Umm Salamah Hind bint Suhayl (r.a.) not avert a crisis at Hudaybiyyah?  The definitive cause to this complex and multi-faceted problem is heavily debated, but a few contributing factors are worth tracing here.  The hegemony of Western civilisation in the modern world brings with it an inevitability that the Muslim world will fall victim to its own weaknesses.  Women have always had a problematic position in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the most obvious example being the Biblical account of Adam (r.a.) and Eve’s Fall from the Garden.  The source of mankind’s original sin is placed squarely on Eve, who represents the weaker sex in the parable; the pains of childbirth have traditionally been regarded as atonement for this original sin in the Christian faith. 

Theological precedents aside, the equality of men and women has come late in the day to Western Europe, with the status of women as ‘human’ being debated in the 16^th century and equal legal rights to men only being established by the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  Misogynism was internationalised, as Aisha Bewley, writer and translator of the Qur’an describes, by western colonial authorities who excluded women from teaching in mosques and assuming political roles in the Muslim societies they colonised.  “The lens through which the West viewed Muslim women was already a distorted one – and once imposed or implanted among the Muslims, this viewpoint gradually became an established norm.”  As the technologically and scientifically superior western culture impressed Muslim intellectuals, they grew more open to the values that these cultures brought with them. 

Finger-pointing at ‘the West’ is a comfortable answer for everyone, but it is all the more important to realise that the fate of the Muslim woman cannot be divorced from the fate of the Muslim community as a whole.  The retraction of women from the public sphere is also the result of fear. “Islam’s current cultural insecurity has been bad for both its scholarship and its women,” says Shaykh Akram.  “Our traditions have grown weak, and when people are weak, they grow cautious.  When they are cautious, they don’t give their women freedom.” Man’s desire to protect women has gone into overdrive, to the point that it has actually undermined the quality of Muslim communities.  When the few women that do break free begin to propagate extreme brands of feminism, the result is a vicious circle of suspicion, fear and oppression. 

The revelation of the 8,000 strong history of Muslim women scholars will prompt a variety of reactions from various parties.  Misogynists are likely to deny it and attempt to undermine its authenticity.  Feminists will be pleased that someone has done the hard work for them.  Yet the best lesson is most likely to be found in the motivation behind its writing.  Shaykh Akram seeks to bring people back to traditional Islam with the purpose of demonstrating that Islam is not misogynistic and nor were early male scholars biased against women.  Accusations that his study encourages free-mixing and the relaxing of modesty are unfounded.  It is clear in the introduction to the forty volumes that the hijab is also the sunnah of the Prophet (s.a.w.) and “enables women to be present and visible in the public space in a way that is safe and dignified.”  Here Shaykh Akram’s status as a learned ‘alim from a prestigious institution, Nadwat al-Ulama in Lucknow, India, who has studied Islam in the traditional way stands him in good stead; scholars including Shaykh Yusuf ibn ‘Abdullah al-Qaradawi have been more than willing to acknowledge his research and findings. 

The irony of our forgotten women scholars is that they spent their lives in the pursuit of historical facts, whereas Muslims have long forgotten the fact of their contribution.  Historical criticism is a fundamental principle in Islam.  The Qur’an Requires: 

سُوۡرَةُ الحُجرَات

يَـٰٓأَيُّہَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ إِن جَآءَكُمۡ فَاسِقُۢ بِنَبَإٍ۬ فَتَبَيَّنُوٓاْ أَن تُصِيبُواْ قَوۡمَۢا بِجَهَـٰلَةٍ۬ ... (٦) 

O you who believe!  If a wicked person comes to you with any news, ascertain the truth, lest you harm people unwittingly ... (Surah al-Hujraat:6) 

Questioning the media frenzy on Islam is not just a good idea, but a religious obligation for Muslims to seek out the truth.  Once we have acknowledged the true historical record, that women are not subjugated by Islam and have played a part since the very beginning, we must also move on.  Islam was not Revealed as a bundle of doctrines delineating women’s rights, human rights or animal rights.  Islam confers all of these rights and duties on us when we sincerely accept Allah’s (s.w.t.) Rights.  Faith, and not bare-knuckled rationality, permits us to create a society where everyone can have their rights upheld through submission to His Word and His messengers.  Centuries of accusations of misogynism have been internalised and turned into reality, making Muslims themselves believe that Islam is flawed. In a world where some women are kept locked in their homes while others are vying to become presidents, Shaykh Akram’s research should present us with some confidence in the justice of Islam.  Not because it proves that Islam has had many women scholars but that there were many great scholars that happened to be women.